


Back to Chicago

by Clair de Lune (clair_de_lune)



Category: Prison Break
Genre: Alternate Canon, F/M, Happy Ending, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-03
Updated: 2012-05-03
Packaged: 2017-11-04 18:58:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/397123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clair_de_lune/pseuds/Clair%20de%20Lune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A dozen years after the escape, Michael, Sara and Lincoln are reunited for LJ's wedding. (Post-series)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Vous revoir](https://archiveofourown.org/works/397112) by [Clair de Lune (clair_de_lune)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/clair_de_lune/pseuds/Clair%20de%20Lune). 



> This is the translation of a story I wrote ages ago: anything that happened post mid-season 2 is not taken into account (in other words: definitely non-canon-compliant).

The guard asks him for his invitation and an ID.

Sure, she’s a young woman, pretty, wearing a smart grey pants suit, her hairdo and make-up absolutely perfect, but she’s a guard, not a hostess, and she won’t hesitate to deny him access if he can’t prove he’s actually who he pretends to be. He assumes it’s the price to pay – there’s always a price to pay – and he searches the inside pocket of his jacket. Before he can get a grasp on his wallet, though, someone calls, “Uncle Mike!” and LJ comes out from the alley.

“Thanks, you can let him in,” he says. The woman doesn’t seem to be so sure, her eyes going back and forth between the two men. “Don’t worry, I know who I’ve invited,” LJ jokes.

Quietly, Michael pulls out his wallet and hands her the required documents. She takes them with a relieved smile, checks his picture, checks her list.

“Thank you, Sir.”

Throughout the last couple of years, he’s seen LJ about once a month. Sometimes, he comes to Chicago and sometimes, LJ goes to Seattle. Michael likes Seattle: it’s far from Illinois, and it’s grey and cold enough so that no one is surprised that he wears long sleeves most of the year. Automatically, he adjusts his watch on his wrist and pulls a bit on the starched cuffs of his dress shirt. He guesses he could have the tattoo removed. Not all of it, of course, but at least the most visible tidbits. One way or another, he never was able to do it. The symbols covering half of his body can be quite inconvenient, but they’re a constant reminder of a part of his life he doesn’t have the slightest intention to disavow.

LJ clasps his shoulder and leads him towards the house at the end of the neat, graveled alley.

Of course, the years before that – years he spent in jail in Tulsa – it was always LJ who came to see him. Twice a month, no more than four visits missed in nine years and only because the kid really didn’t have a choice. Back then, the tattoo wasn’t an issue. Well, not the same kind of issue, anyway.

He’s seen LJ many times since Linc’s name was cleared, since Sara made it and survived the Company’s goons, since _he_ surrendered to the police to serve his initial sentence – and a tad more. He’s seen him in law courts, in jail visiting rooms, in quiet coffee shops, in his own apartment, in LJ and Elizabeth’s living room. He’s seen him depressed, happy, relieved, nervous, furious, excited. But today is the first time he’s seen him standing in the luxurious garden of Sara Tancredi’s residence, about to cry and laugh at the same time.

“How is Elizabeth?” he asks him.

“As good as I am.” He smiles. “Like someone who’s getting married. One hour ago, she was about to go ballistic on... pretty much anyone talking to her. Since then, I’m not allowed in the room anymore, so you’ll have to ask Sara.” No reaction, of course. Not that LJ expected one, but... yeah, well, he did hope for one. “Or Patty,” he sighs. “I’m glad you’re here, Uncle Mike.”

They’ve reached the house – when an edifice has twenty rooms, three levels and marble columns, LJ’s not sure ‘house’ is an appropriate term, but it’s what Sara calls it. The gardens are flawless; the green lawn seems to shine under the spring sun as if it’s been polished; seats and an arbor covered with white and yellow flowers have been set by the side of the house; and more than one hundred people are laughing and chatting.

Michael can almost hear his throat working when he swallows hard.

“I’m glad to be here, LJ.”

And it’s not even a lie.

He spots him quickly in the middle of the crowd. He spots _them_ quickly, it’s not like they could go unnoticed. Lincoln is taller than most of the guests, and when Sara walks down to him, she’s followed by a guy wearing a black suit and an earphone. And even if they had been more unnoticeable, anonymous in the gathering, he probably would have spotted them in a blink of an eye, because they’re all he can see. Conversations suddenly seem less loud, and all the other guests are merged in a grey, dull mass. Barely a nuisance. It’s fascinating how someone like him, so often assaulted by details, can ignore them right now.

Standing still near LJ, he watches his brother and his... He realizes he doesn’t know how to define Sara; he doesn’t know what Sara is or was to him. So, he watches his brother and Sara kiss one another like old pals, happy and totally comfortable with each other, Sara’s hand resting on Lincoln’s arm. She leans in when she speaks to Lincoln so that the guard can’t overhear, telling him something that elicits a burst of laughter, and Michael suddenly takes in that his brother and Sara _are_ old pals. They’ve rubbed shoulders for over ten years. Sara probably knows Linc better than she knows Michael – she would probably tell him that she doesn’t really know him. Thinking about it, maybe _he_ doesn’t know her and doesn’t know Linc anymore. Ten years.

“Uncle Mike? You want a drink?”

He can hear the question, but he doesn’t actually understand it; he keeps watching them and something twists deep in his stomach. Jealousy, he muses, is not a noble or pleasant feeling, but still, he’d like to know who is jealous of, actually, Lincoln or Sara. Ten years. Probably both of them, to be honest.

LJ authoritatively hands him a glass of juice. He feels its coolness in the palm of his hand, the condensation moistening his fingers.

He knows both of them are all right because LJ told him so – obviously, Sara’s even more than all right. It’s totally deserved. He just wishes they talk to him and smile to him the way they’re talking together and smiling to each other. Not that there’s anyone but him to blame for the current situation. He sips on his drink. Self-pity, he admits, is not noble or pleasant either.

He keeps his eyes trained on them as they go inside the house, Linc’s hand cozily grazing Sara’s elbow. LJ is staring at him, and Michael turns around to face his nephew. He thought there would be understanding, maybe pity on LJ’s face, but all he can see is challenge. Ah. He probably used all the sympathy he could hope to get from the kid.

When he glances at the house again, it’s to see Sara’s goon securely closing the door.

“Uncle Mike? You know what I’d like as a wedding gift, huh?”

He forces himself to delve back into the conversation.

“I kind of hope it’s a silver soup tureen because I got exactly the one Elizabeth was looking for.”

LJ doesn’t blink and, even though it asks him a bit of effort, doesn’t smile either.

“We’ve been living together for one and a half year and we’ve never needed a soup tureen. Even less a silver one. You know what I’d like as a wedding gift,” he says again, this time around with an affirmative tone. He looks at Michael with that exact same expression Lincoln sometimes used on him in another life. And truth be told, even years later, it’s still working.

“You know what emotional blackmail is, don’t you, LJ?”

“Yeah,” he answers evenly, “and I’ve never minded using it.”

= = =


	2. Chapter 2

The guard stays at the kitchen door. He does seem a bit annoyed with that, but he knows there is no way around it: Sara laid out a few rules, and one of them is that there will be no bodyguard in her kitchen. She can’t always keep him out of her study, her living room or even her bedroom; the kitchen is her little safe heaven. The room is quiet and empty, the caterers having invested the serving pantry, and Lincoln goes and stands behind the window. Sara doesn’t say anything, even though she knows what he’s looking for.

“How is Elizabeth?” he asks her.

“Freaking out. When they buttoned up her dress, a button got loose and fell and...” She shrugs, obviously a bit fazed by the reaction of the young woman. “Her sister is helping her to fix it. I left them alone, there was nothing I could do.”

“All women are nervous on their wedding day, Sara.”

He says that with a slightly patronizing tone that makes her wonder how she’s been able to stand him for so many years. Not only stand him, but also like him. Like him enough to seek his presence.

“Mmm, you out of all people should know. Was it ex Mrs. Burrows Number Two who tore her dress walking down the stairs? Or Number Three? I always confuse the two of them.”

“Oh, classy.”

“I wasn’t that freaked out for when I got married.”

 _She says_ that with a slightly cynical tone that makes him wonder how he’s been able to stand her for so many years. Not only stand her, but also like her. Like her enough to seek her presence.

“And we saw how well everything turned out.”

“Oh, classy,” she shoots back. She smiles, though, because even if she won’t admit it to him, he’s right. He doesn’t need this to be acknowledged, he’s usually pretty good at stressing it out himself.

“For the record, Andie didn’t tear her dress in the stairs, but right before she left her bedroom because we...

She raises both hands in front of her, like a cop regulating the traffic. And it’s a bit something like that: she’s regulating the traffic of the words spilling out of his mouth before his brain has totally processed them. More than once, she heard more details than she would have liked to and she’s not going to let it happen again. For the hundredth time, she wonders how someone as taciturn as he is can sometimes be so (excessively) loquacious.

“OK, stop. Thank you.” She walks to him and comes to a halt when her shoulder brushes his arm. It’s her turn to stare at the crowd through the window. “Lincoln?” she prompts interrogatively. “Michael’s here.”

“Of course.”

Of course he’s here, it’s not like LJ gave them any choice. LJ said he wanted the two of them to be here and act, if not in a fraternal way, at least in a civilized one. Actually, he told this to Michael, but it was over the phone and Lincoln was sitting right in front of his son, the kid looking him in the eye while talking. Lincoln may not be as brainy as Michael, but he can get this kind of heavy suggestion. They really didn’t have a choice. Sometimes, he wonders where LJ got that strong-willed, stubborn mind – last time he mentioned this to Sara, she laughed, patted his arm and gave him more cake, apparently implying that, while he had his mouth full, he wouldn’t be able to make absurd remarks.

“One hundred and twenty guests, four ex-cons,” Linc points out. In a flash, he remembers Michael telling him that there’s no such thing as an ex-con. He pushes the memory away. This is something he’s been doing on a regular basis for about ten years, pushing away memories involving his brother. It sometimes is a real issue since it nullifies the first three quarters of his life. And even the fact that he is still alive. “Your Dir Com must be thrilled.”

He’s not seen his brother yet, within that crowd, but he spotted the Dir Com, a grumpy guy with an egg-like skull and a brown grayish beard.

“If my Dir Com is not happy, he can...”

She stops abruptly because Lincoln just turned around and he’s looking at her, his eyebrows arched in a funny way.

“It’s a miracle you’ve been elected,” he says sarcastically. “And re-elected.”

“It’s a miracle the party keeps letting me run. But my Dir Com is talented and loves challenges.”

Her hands on the kitchen counter, she pushes on her arms and hoists herself up. OK. Now, she’s not sure she can’t get down without ruining her dress or the heels of her lovely and so delicate pumps. Lincoln shakes his head: she just has this habit to perch on... tables, fences, back seats, windowsills... If she wasn’t wearing a cocktail dress, she would probably already be sitting in the lotus position.

“Do you at least remember why you’ve fallen out with each other?” she asks him. He looks at her, wondering if he could now leave the room and leave her to her own devices to get down the counter and on her feet. But she knows he won’t, and he guesses it’s her way to make him stay.

“It was Michael’s fault”, he replies automatically.

“Of course it was Michael’s fault”, she approves. He throws her a suspicious glance, looking for the manipulation, the manifestation of reverse psychology, but she just shrugs. “He’s always been cleverer than you, right? He should have found a way to make everything all right.”

“He blew up his life...”

“Lincoln, I swear to God, if you go there again, I’m going to scream. And maybe you were...”

“... to get me out of here, when I’d blown up...”

“... a very bad boy...”

“... my own life so he wouldn’t have to...”

“... but my bodyguard is fifteen years younger than you and...”

“... to do... that kind of crap.”

“... he will beat the shit out of you.”

He squints at her.

“ _I_ can beat the shit out of that runt anytime I want.”

“And my Dir Com _will_ be thrilled then. Not to mention LJ and Elizabeth.”

He can never win those arguments they have. With Michael, he could always play the big brother’s card, but Sara... Sara has no _respect_.

Shit, he thinks crudely, realizing he just compared his brother to Sara. It’s something he usually forbids himself to do, because it derogates to the rule stating that he shouldn’t think about Michael. In his own defense, not thinking about Michael when they’re talking about Michael is kind of hard to achieve. Most of the time, he just doesn’t bring him up into the conversation, Sara backs him up and it makes everything easier.

“That he blew up his life wasn’t so much of an issue for you until he surrendered to the authorities.”

He comes closer to her and invades her personal space, a hand on the counter, threatening. It doesn’t really have the expected effect since she’s known for long he will never hurt her. Quite the contrary, she lifts up her chin and smiles, and he can feel her pointy shoe innocently pressing against his knee. Preemptive strike.

“That he blew up his life has always been an issue.” Euphemism of the decade, he thinks. “But...”

“... but not as much as the perspective of you frying on the chair. It’s human, Lincoln. You realize he did it for himself as much as he did it for you, don’t you?” She knows, she knows as surely as if Michael had told her. Maybe Linc knows what his brother gave up for him, but Sara took care and fixed every wound, put up with every look and heard every plea. It lasted only one and a half month, but an especially long and intense one.

“Thanks for the free shrink session. Do you at least remember why _you_ have fallen out with each other?”

The pressure of the shoe against his knee alleviates, which is not a good thing: it means Sara is taking impulse to kick him if necessary. Sara doesn’t play fair.

“We haven’t fallen out with each other. He just asked me not to visit him.”

In prison. He asked her not to visit him while he was in prison. It doesn’t explain why they haven’t met since he’s out. But Lincoln doesn’t say anything because the sharp end of the shoe is not very far and he doesn’t want to attend his only son’s wedding with a sore knee.

Not to visit him, not to intercede in his favor, not to wait for him. She doesn’t know why Lincoln keeps asking, she already explained him everything and told him she followed Michael’s wishes because it was all she could do. When he heard that, Lincoln snorted in a rather gross and insulting way. As if he didn’t believe her. And it’s true that, as soon as she could, she did intercede in his favor to back up an early discharge. But Michael never knew it. And she never visited him. And she didn’t wait for him: she married someone else, didn’t she? It should be proof enough. At this point, Lincoln snorted again.

“LJ was mad at him too. And he wasn’t supposed to visit him either. He did nonetheless.”

“LJ is more stubborn than us,” Lincoln explains with an admirable bad faith. Sighing, he whirls around and hops on the counter next to her. For a while, they just sit there, still, quiet, staring at the guests they should join. “Guilt sucks big time,” he announces philosophically.

She wants to snuggle up in an armchair and cross her legs under her. Since she can’t do that, she just kicks her feet like a kid.

“Do you know what LJ would like as a wedding gift?” Linc says.

“I kind of hope it’s a long weekend in New-York, with a room at the Marriot, for the opening of the theater season, because I’ve already taken all the arrangements.”

With her talent to elude questions, no wonder the party keeps letting her run: it largely makes up for the fact that she can’t always shut up when necessary.

“Do you know what LJ would really like as a wedding gift? Aside from the weekend in New-York?”

She throws him a sideway glance.

“A father/uncle reconciliation?”

He slides down the counter and holds out his hands to help her down.

“Yeah,” he admits, “that too.”

Sometimes, he really wonders how someone like him had a son as softie as LJ. It has to be Lisa’s genes.

= = =


	3. Chapter 3

It required a bit of effort, but years ago, he eventually managed to get most of the social niceties allowing him to be comfortable in pretty much any circumstance. He didn’t always understand people, or their acts and choices, but it went almost inconspicuous beneath his veneer of good manners.

He’s comfortable in a lot of circumstances these days, sometimes maybe a bit too comfortable (he tried but never managed to acquire Charles’ wise and benevolent detachment: it put him in situations he _should_ have been sorry for if he’d had more good sense). But those circumstances don’t include his nephew’s wedding taking place in an upper-crust residence. It’s one the things prison took away from him. So, he’s sitting by himself, under a tree, with the plate a waitress artistically prepared for him and a flute of perfectly chilled champagne. He watches LJ and Elizabeth dance, happy for them and happy to be here.

She still uses the same perfume. It’s the first thing he notices when she approaches him, a soft, tangy and fruity odor. Not that she wore perfume back in Fox River when she was on duty, but the scent clang to her clothes, her hair, clang to her: he summoned it up often enough to know. Politely, he stands up and turns around. The guard stops far enough not to hear anything they might say to each other; she keeps on walking towards him and he feels a rush of worry when he realizes that he didn’t plan this. He didn’t plan what he would say to Lincoln – if he says anything to Lincoln – and he didn’t plan what he could say to Sara.

He breathes in deeply and thinks that, maybe, he’s already planned way too many things regarding Lincoln and Sara.

“Senator Tancredi,” he greets her with a tiny smile.

She’s so... not different from the memories he kept of her: just her hair a bit lighter, a few lines around her eyes, her expression showing, beneath the apparent softness, a strength she may not be totally aware of. Although she has to know by now, she had many occasions to acknowledge it. Partly thanks to him. Because of him.

“Mister Scofield.” She moves her arm and he thinks she’s going to hold out her hand: he takes it and shakes it formally, and Sara rolls her eyes. “Oh, for God’s sake, Michael, don’t be so uptight.”

Holding on to his hand, she pulls him against her and kisses his cheek. It lasts just a bit longer than necessary for a friendly kiss before she backs off and sits on the chair next to his. A few yards away, the guard doesn’t budge, keeps watch over Michael and pretends not to see anything. For a split second, she wonders if the guard would rat her to the Dir Com – looks like the first time she ran for an election, she lost a significant part of her freedom of action. At least, this is how the people working for her, including Elizabeth, see it.

He’s changed, more than Lincoln, but she guesses it’s quite logical: when she met Lincoln, he’d already gone through murder charges, a trial and a death sentence; the harder times for Michael came after they’d met, and his eyes... his eyes... Yet, when he sits near her and looks at her, he has the same expression he had years ago, part affection, part provocation. She shifts on her chair when she realizes she’s not totally immune to it. No immune at all.

At all.

“So, senator,” he repeats because he doesn’t really know what to say.

She nods. “Yeah.”

“Of all the people I imagined becoming a politician...”

He doesn’t complete his sentence. He seems to have a problem with completing his sentences; he never had problems talking to her, though, huh? He fumbles with his flute of champagne but doesn’t drink; he doesn’t eat either.

“So you and Lincoln are... friends.”

She nods again. Friends. She never wanted to figure out how much she was to Lincoln a substitute for his brother and made up for his absence – and reciprocally, how much he was her last tie to Michael. It was true at the beginning, it’s not anymore, not for a long time.

She bites her lips and, before even thinking about it, lets slip in a low voice, “You didn’t even try to defend yourself.”

She knows it’s the point she shouldn’t bring up. This is how their last conversation ended: he got up, asked her politely (so politely that if the thick glass of the visiting room hadn’t been between them, she would have slapped him) not to visit him / wait for him / intercede in his favor, and he left the room. There was nothing she could do about since the badge wouldn’t force him back to his chair. But now, it’s her place. And she knows the idea is going to whirl in her mind until she expresses it. Better get rid of it right now.

He stops fumbling with the flute.

“Sara... People died because I let Bagwell out. People were wounded and hurt because of what I did. Moreover...”

“You shouldn’t have gone back to jail.”

“... it wasn’t supposed to happen like that.”

“Like what?”

“I had the choice between running away to Panama and never see again...” Pause. “... the people I cared for, or surrender, serve my time and have the chance to keep seeing...” Another pause. “... the people I cared for.”

“And this reasoning worked out so well since some of the...” She pauses, and he wonders whether she’s involuntary mimicking him or merely mocking him. “... people you cared for haven’t seen you for ten years.”

“This is what wasn’t supposed to happen like that.”

“Human factor is a bitch.”

She reaches out for one of the delicate, tiny sandwiches in his plate. It’s a natural, familiar move, which makes it rather weird. He doesn’t think she realizes that.

“So...,” he prompts because she’s not adding anything. “We’re not going to have this discussion again, are we?”

“It’s not a discussion, it’s my take on the situation.” Another sandwich. “And I’m entitled to express it, since I’m one of the people who were wounded and hurt because of what you did.”

It’s a low blow. She has a few more under her belt – ten years to store them up – and she promises herself she’s going to try not to deliver all of them. Not today anyway.

“I’m sorry. This isn’t how I’d planned things,” she admits.

He looks up abruptly when she says ‘planned’. Well, she can plan things too. As it is, she’d planned to be polite, phlegmatic and not to mention any disagreements they may have. She kissed him, started the conversation she’d sworn to elude and ate in his plate: ‘polite and phlegmatic’ is not a success so far.

For a few minutes, she keeps on pillaging the content of his plate, so eventually, he offers her his flute of champagne too. She shakes her head. No alcohol for her – no substance that could lead to dependence. Of course. There are so many details. For example...

He looks down. Her hands are on the table, elegantly crossed. He glances at her fingers and, before he’s had the time to register what he sees, he hears Sara’s voice.

“Divorced,” she tells him. “Married seven years ago, divorced two years later, no kid.”

She lifts her hands, fingers spread, and let them fall back on the table as though to stress out her words. He looks at her with a bit of embarrassment. He doesn’t know why he checked the way he did: she’s a public figure, so is her marital status, and he _knew_.

“Have I always been that obvious?”

“No,” she retorts. “No. Actually, there was a time when your motivations were rather murky.”

There is a hint of harshness in her tone, which she seems to regret right away because she gets up and reaches out for him.

“You want to dance?”

He stares at the proffered hand. She has short nails and wears no polish. Just like before. The senator still has her doctor’s hands.

“Dance?”

“Move in rhythm with the music,” she explains. “People do that at a wedding.”

He hasn’t danced since... since... long enough so that their lapidary discussion seems more comfortable to him. It’s quite something. But she insists, wriggles her finger to urge him to stand. He wonders if he’s supposed to take her hand or if he can get away with walking by her side. He goes for another option and offers her his arm. She glances at him and probably thinks he doesn’t hear her muttering sarcastically, “Fogy.”

She does lean on his arm though.

* * *

The lapidary discussion was really more comfortable. Despite his sudden inability to come up with complete and intelligent sentences and despite Sara’s digs. Because now, there is the noise of the music and of the conversations, the people whirling around them and those who’re watching them. To be more precise, someone is taking pictures, people are looking at them and the bodyguard watches over them – over him. To make it worse, Sara is so close that he can make out all the tiny hairs that slid out of her elaborated hairdo, and there’s the way too thin fabric of her dress under his hands.

Some reflexes have to be more rooted than he thought because he takes Sara’s hand in his own and starts spinning both of them, and he doesn’t walk on her feet at all. Not a single time. After a few minutes, things get blurry, in the best possible way. Now, if he could find something to say...

“There’s a guy who kept staring at us,” he remarks. OK... it’s better than nothing.

She doesn’t even bother checking.

“My bodyguard.”

“No... I mean, yes, of course. But someone else.”

He nods towards a man with an egg-like skull and a brown grayish beard. He’s standing at the rim of the dance floor, his left elbow in his right hand, his left hand tugging at the brown grayish beard. Sara smiles knowingly.

“My director of communication.”

“Oh, then I guess it explains why he looks like he’s attending a funeral rather than a wedding.”

She shakes her head.

“It’s his regular expression. I think I’ve seen him smiling only twice.”

“When you won the elections?” he deduces. 

“It lasted three days each time. It was scary.” She spins faster, faster, and he arches his eyebrows. He was under the impression that the man was supposed to lead but well, this is probably fogy too. “You have to talk to Lincoln,” she strikes.

He comes to a halt. It’s not easy to think when everything around you is spiraling, but she keeps on making him dance and maybe this is her goal, prevent him from thinking, making him literally and metaphorically waltz towards Lincoln. And obviously, it’s working since, rather than protesting, contesting, discussing, he just answers, “I know.”

At some point between the time he received LJ’s invitation (or was it a summoning?) and the time he boarded the plane, he got this. Now he just has to admit it. He’s stubborn, Linc is stubborn, but one of them must make the first move. After all, Sara made the first move with him...

“Asking us not to visit you was stupid,” she adds, pushing her advantage.

... or maybe not. Anyway, the reasons why they were at odds seem less and less valid, more and more distant, more and more absurd. More and more caused by their respective prides and less and less by a sane and sound resentment.

“You refused to understand why...”

“Yes, I know. It was stupid nonetheless. Humoring you and not visiting you was stupid too. The only one who showed a bit of reason in that story was LJ.” She looks pointedly at him. “Right?”

“Right.”

It has to be the shortest and less sorry mea culpa in the history of mea culpa. Maybe it’s not a bad thing since the entire version of it could last for a while, and they’ve already wasted enough time.

Sara leans her forehead against his shoulder. The gesture is way too... too something for people who have lost touch for ten years. The guests keep whirling around them. The bodyguard makes his best not to see anything. The photographer photographs. The Dir Com frowns a bit more – if that’s possible.

“Guilt sucks big time,” she lets drop. “Yours, ours.”

“It sounds like something Lincoln would say,” he remarks, and he can tell she’s smiling.

= = =


	4. Chapter 4

“If someone uses again the phrase ‘most beautiful day of your life’ in my face, I might go back to the bedroom and hang myself with my garter.”

Elizabeth is carrying a flute of champagne and a glass of juice. She hands the juice to Sara, of course, and collapses in the chair near her with a heavy sigh. The voluminous skirt of her dress swells and overflows, and she almost disappears in bulks of lace and silk. She seems to be quite okay with that.

“You’re actually wearing a garter?” Sara asks.

“That’s not the point. I’m twenty-six: if I’ve already lived the most beautiful day of my life, then something is rotten in the state of Denmark.”

Sara soothingly pats her shoulder. Woman has a point.

They’re in the rose garden. All of them are in the rose garden: Elizabeth and her sitting aside, LJ, Lincoln and Michael stuck between the roses and the camera. Apparently, Elizabeth doesn’t mind not being on a bunch of pictures from her own wedding. The fact that, a few yards away, LJ positively beams between his father and his uncle, themselves displaying an uptight-annoyed-awkward expression, probably helps. Family pictures, the photographer announced a bit earlier. Meaning, Elizabeth’s mom and dad, her sister Patty, Lincoln and Michael, and Sara, whom Lincoln grabbed by the arm and dragged with them.

Then, LJ decided he wanted photos with his father and uncle. He seems to think that forcing them to stay two feet away from each other will lead to some sort of dialogue. Sara glances at the tense line of Lincoln’s shoulders and hopes that the dialogue, if there is any, won’t go to bad.

“This is me or it’s soppy?” Elizabeth points at the scene happening in front of them. “It’s my wedding day, I’m a woman, I’m supposed to be quite emotional today, right? And I find this soppy.”

“It is soppy”, Sara seconds. That said, who is she to judge? The asserted cynicism of her youth has softened: now she uses it more scarcely and wisely, but with more stringency too. Like now. However, given the situation, she shows a bit of optimism. “But it can work.”

If Lincoln stops acting like an obstinate fool and makes an effort. She stares at him until he can feel her eyes on him, as though she could force him to _do_ something from her seat, and he pretends he didn’t notice anything. Not gonna be easy.

She has with her a small laptop with all the pictures the photographer has been taking since the beginning of the day. Not bothering to ask, Elizabeth snatches it – her wedding, her pictures – and starts perusing the photos. Some of the photos. She smiles, amused or sarcastic, Sara’s not sure to make the difference, or that there is a difference.

“What?” she asks her.

“Nothing. I’m almost sure I can convince the rest of the staff that those pictures are a good thing for your campaign. You know, something along the line ‘Senator Tancredi carries on her efforts to rehabilitate ex-convicts’. Of course, some of your opponents may use the same caption and will point out that the ex-convict is...

“An old friend’s brother?” she cuts her off.

“That’s a way to put it.”

They stay quiet for a while, just looking at the images on the small screen. Elizabeth pauses on one of them and waits, and Sara explains with all the dignity she can summons, “This is LJ’s wedding gift.”

“Really?” Elizabeth raises her eyebrows, totally impressed, and tilts her head as though to have a better view of the picture. For a few seconds, she plays with the idea to ask to Sara if her bodyguard isn’t supposed to do something when someone is _that_ close to her, but she eventually settles for, “If this makes it to national press, will you let me sit with the PR staff so I can count their breakdowns?”

“The PR staff can kiss my...”

“I wonder where you picked up this kind of language,” Elizabeth interrupts her, her eyes trained on her father-in-law. “Do you really think that you...” She thinks that maybe a less direct approach will spare her a sharp comeback, and she settles for, “... that, after a few years, people can get back in touch and start again where they’d stopped things?”

Sara doesn’t answer right away, she keeps looking at the pictures on the laptop. In front of the roses, the photographer carries on his task, and Michael and Lincoln play along rather gracefully.

“Start again, sure. Where we’d stopped years ago, no. Considering how our last meeting ended, I don’t think any of us want to start again where we’d stopped things.” She hits the back button a few times, coming back on the picture that caught Elizabeth’s attention, and she has a small, smug smile. “Oh, and Michael and I had never been _there_.”

* * *

He’s never liked having his picture taken. As a kid already, he was uncomfortable with the idea of a camera watching him, of a still image, of the attention granted to him. He liked it even less during his trial (the second one, because if the first one flew under the radar, the second one definitely didn’t).

In comparison, dancing with Sara earlier was almost easy.

He’s not comfortable. Because of the pictures, and because of Lincoln who stands so close to him but never looks him in the eye. Never when Michael is looking at him, anyway, because every now and then, he can feel his brother’s eyes on him. It’s stupid. It’s stupid, but he’s going to have to make the first move because if one thing hasn’t changed in ten years, it’s Linc’s stubbornness when he’s made his mind. He wonders if this may qualify as stubbornness, by the way, because stubbornness would imply that Linc thought about it when, actually, he’s merely sticking to his gun. It’s what made, and probably still makes, his strength. It’s what made, and still makes, Michael crazy.

Really, who he thinks he’s fooling with this kind of remark? As though he was less stubborn than Linc. It has to be genetic, actually, because in this regard, LJ is quite something too.

And speaking of LJ... does his nephew really hope that sticking the three of them before the camera is going to accomplish anything? Doesn’t he believe a bit too naively in the magical power of pretty pictures?

Because, Michael will grant him that, it is a pretty picture. The soft warmth of the evening, the tender green of the lawn, the blue sky slowly coloring with purple and gold, the various-colored roses, the happy echo of the party. At the periphery of his field of vision, Elizabeth, just adorable, and Sara so beautiful (if he had fewer good manners, he would say that Sara totally overshadows the younger woman, but the bride is supposed to be the queen of the day, right?) Next to him, LJ has flung an arm around his shoulders, and Lincoln is just a couple of feet away. (He suppresses the need to think ‘fucking Lincoln’ there because, really, it wouldn’t suit the rest of the lovely picture LJ tried to put together.)

He has to admit that deep inside he wants to add the last touch to the idyllic scene. He has to admit that saying he’s angry with his brother is easier when said brother is not standing within his reach and when he can’t feel the warmth of his arm right against his. And he’s not thinking this because he’s starting to feel ridiculous in front of the photographer or because Sara and Elizabeth look at them with a sarcastic smirk tugging their lips.

He ever so slightly shifts his arm in LJ’s back, and the top of his sleeve brushes the bottom of Lincoln’s sleeve. His brother straightens ups, clears his throat, opens his mouth and shuts back without saying a word. It figures. Eloquence has never been Linc’s strongest suit.

He can feel that LJ is elbowing his father, some sort of reminder, and Linc starts all over again – straightens up, clears his throat, breathes in before speaking. He lays his hand on LJ’s skull to push him forward and he leans backward, catching Michael’s eyes.

“So, um... you made Sara dance, Michael?”

Eloquence really isn’t Linc’s strongest suit: one would think that, after ten years of silence, he would find something a bit more meaningful to tell him.

And maybe leniency isn’t Michael’s strongest suit: one would think that after ten years of silence, he would be a bit more indulgent. He leans backward too and looks at his brother above LJ’s head.

“I think _she_ made me dance,” he admits.

“That’s Sara.”

Linc smiles at him. A bit hesitantly at first, then knowingly.

Michael smiles back.

LJ, God bless him, decides that they probably have way more than enough pictures, now.

* * *

A bit later, they’re sitting at the bar in the residence’s garden, flutes of champagne in front of them, and they chat about everything and anything – only unimportant matters. LJ and Elizabeth are monopolized by their guests. On the dance floor, Sara rocks’ n rolls with the bride’s father, her hair undone and tangled on her shoulders. One would think the Dir Com is not happy with such an excessive display of spontaneity but, actually, he keeps staring at Michael. Michael assumes he hasn’t forgiven him for the way Sara and he waltzed this afternoon, or for what followed the waltz, or for the fact that the photographer found himself compelled to immortalize the whole thing. The Dir Com should incontestably plan things better if he doesn’t want to lose control over the situation.

There’s a blank in the conversation and Linc rekindles it by asking Michael what he plans to do next Saturday.

“Is this an invitation to something?”

His brother raises his eyebrows.

“Baseball. Sara has the best seats in the state and she just doesn’t care.”

Linc thinks this is really, really, the moot point of their friendship, the fact that Sara can’t appreciate a good game and doesn’t give a damn to who win what. If he insists, she might comment on the players’ looks and figures but quite frankly, this is not something he’s very much interested in.

“It’s almost anti-patriotic,” Michael concedes. He sips on his champagne to give himself a bit of courage. He’s been doing that for several flutes and the effects are starting to show. He decides to act before he forgets why he... “Linc, aren’t we going to talk about...”

“Talk about what?” Lincoln cuts him off quietly. “You haven’t changed your mind about what you should’ve done, have you? And I haven’t changed my mind about what you should’ve done. The last time we talked about it, we stopped talking to each other altogether.”

There is some logic in Lincoln’s statement; it’s just that Michael can’t decide whether it’s a totally twisted logic or a totally sensible one. He can’t decide whether this is awful cowardice or basic wisdom.

Then, he realizes this is just neat, this is just it, this is just the way things are supposed to be. He didn’t need to plan what he would say to Lincoln, because he doesn’t need to say anything to Lincoln. God knows, if explanations had ever been required between Linc and him, they would have never stopped fighting, not a single minute.

Sara is still dancing, the neat perfection of her dress and hair long gone. The bartender fills their flutes for the fourth – or is it fifth? – time. Lincoln pushes the glass out of Michael’s reach and tells him, “You had enough for now,” and smiles at him just the way he smiled at Sara earlier today. Just the way he smiled at him years ago.

“Baseball? Next Saturday?”

-End-


End file.
